I enjoyed the acting in this film but I found the set-up/background rather incongruent (i.e. Ida Lupino and Fay Bainter playing 'hillbillies') and the plot was also uneven but was charming and romantic in it's own way.
‘Six inches is perfectly adequate; more is vulgar!' (Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Re: An open window).
I gathered that the mother used to have a cultured existence but her husband sold all of her nice things, although upstairs she still kept a home where a bit of her genteel world lingered. Their extreme isolation did terrible things to their lives.
Personally, although I didn't know at the time that Lupino was ten years older than her character's age, she didn't seem young enough to me.